Tuesday, May 22, 2007

"Mini Shu Tanka Awayalo"

I don't speak Lakota Sioux, so I had to spell it phonetically. "Mini shu tanka awayalo" means Dances with Wolves. Beyond a doubt, my favorite movie. When I first saw the movie the vast openness and the buffalo just grabbed my imagination and I just had to go west and see and feel it in person.

It was freak'n awesome!

South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana are pure heaven. My favorite is South Dakota and more specifically Custer State Park. The buffalo herd there is extraordinary.

I now understand why the Native Americans followed the buffalo trail.

Besides using the entire animal for subsistence, they had religious ties to it also.

These beasts are amazingly graceful for large animals and, for me at least, there is something mystical about them.

The herd in Yellowstone, Wyoming is beautiful too. Neither place should be missed if you travel west.

When you are there and experience it you can't help but wonder what it must have been like for the first Mountain Men and Lewis and Clarke's crew to see for the very first time!

"...give me a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play..."